Observing Log for Mike Durkin 4/26/2003 about 10:00 PM Nazareth, PA, about 50 degrees Transparency: 4/10, seeing: 6/10 Ultima C8 Went out to Vinny's for the weekend. Brought out the C8 hoping for very dark skies. Unfortunately though the clouds were too much. But we did break out my scope and Vinny's for Jupiter. We were able to see it, and two of it's belts, however I wasn't able to make out the colors of the belts like I have before. I also think we just made out some of the Great Red Spot. We finished up shortly after that because of dew. 4/12/2003 4:00PM-11:00PM Oyster Bay, about 50-60 degrees Transparency: 5/10, seeing: 9/10 Ultima C8, and 10x50 binoculars Jupiter: All Jupiter today. During the day I thought I would try to find Jupiter in daylight. I used PSC on the Zaurus and roughly found out where Jupiter would be with respect to the moon. The using binoculars I tried to find it and I was able to find it in binoculars. After that I tried to find it naked eye, and I was able to. It is very had to pick out with a blue background, but once you see it, you know you've found it. This was around 4-6 PM. Later on, around 8:30, I set up the C8 to look at Jupiter. Turns out to have been a good night for Jupiter. Although the moon was out and there seemes to be some clouds, the seeing was the steadiest I have ever had. I set up the Nikon Coolpix 995 and took some pictures of Jupiter. The pictures came out OK, but stil not quite of the quality I have seen on other web sites. I have some copies of the pictures here I was easily able to see the 2 equitorial belts, and I noticed a slight difference in color between the two. One had redder tone to it. I think I missed catching one of the moon's shadows on the planet earlier. Also based on software for the Zaurus, the Great Red Spot was due to cross the Meridian a little later so I took a break. After the break I noticed the GRS, although as I have been reading, it isn't as red as it has been in the past. I first noticed it more as a gap in one of the equitorial belts. I also thoght I saw some detail trailing the GRS, but I couldn't tell for sure. Also used a couple of color filters, but they didn't seem to do enough to bring out extra detail.